Just a reminder the library is closed Friday, December 23 through Monday, December 26 — so put those books on hold and you can pick them up on Tuesday, December 27!

(As usual click on the photo for a larger view!)

This photo is of the old castle, aka arsenal, which was built in 1858 and later sold, at auction, to Saint Mary’s Church and used as an orphanage and convent before the building was torn down in the 1960s. (Dimitroff and Janes 46-48)

This photo, which actually appears to be a photo of a post card, does not feature a mystery at all as it is obviously the old library building located across the street from City Hall.

The only real question for us to ponder, regarding this photo, is what year the photo was taken – my guess is before the 1926 fire that severely damaged the building and before it was repaired and reopened as the local public library in 1930.

The best in-depth history book on Corning & Painted Post is the one written by Thomas Dimitroff & Lois Janes titled

History of the CORNING Painted Post Area: 200 Years in Painted Post Country

and the book features some cool information on the World War Memorial Library – as follows:

“The City Club bought the Rogers lot at the corner of Pine and First Streets in 1894. Its new clubhouse opened there March 30, 1898;” and “Although attempts had been made to establish some type of World War I memorial, none of them had appealed to the various interested groups, and ten years after the war the city did not have a World War monument. During the same period, the library which the city had taken over in 1921, was finding it more difficult to provide service from crowded quarters on the upper floor of city hall. On Memorial Day, 1930, the two problems were solved with the dedication of the Memorial Library building.”

(Dimitroff and Janes 111, 236-237)

The authors go on to note that the Memorial Library building housed the library until its move to its current location in the Nasser Civic Center Plaza in 1975 where it was housed from 1975 until it closed in 1999.

And the “new” library, The Southeast Steuben County Library, opened in the same Nasser Civic Center location in 2000, where it remains today as a vibrant part of the local community.

The disk in the photo is the original 200″ reflecting telescope disk made for George Ellery Hale in 1934.

The disk was to be installed at the Palomar Observatory in California. And this disk, the first one they created, is imperfect due to the mold cracking as the glass was being poured to create the disk.

So the original disc, seen in the photo is, as it has been for many years, on display at the Corning Museum of Glass.

The second disk they poured did, indeed, go on to be used by the Palomar Observatory — where it is still being used today.

And if you’d like to know more about the disk on display at CMOG and its successor disk that went to the Palomar Observatory – here’s a link to a page on The Corning Museum of Glass website titled “MIRROR TO DISCOVERY: THE 200-INCH DISK AND THE HALE REFLECTING TELESCOPE AT PALOMAR” — where you’ll find more information: